


Different Chances

by ginkata



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Blackwatch Era, Body Horror, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-01
Updated: 2016-11-01
Packaged: 2018-08-28 11:30:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,868
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8444131
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ginkata/pseuds/ginkata
Summary: Jesse McCree is not the best for moral support.





	

**Author's Note:**

> fandom needs more mcgenji also this ones for my main man Elliot. sorry for extremely choppy writing :’( i started writing this at 8am with sleep deprivation

Genji was pressing himself to Jesse's side, coursing a well-anticipated shiver through the gunslinger when he was reminded Genji's external body structure was made of sixty percent freezing-cold titanium, twenty percent synthetic, just as cold. The cyborg pulled a portable device to his lap with an infectious eagerness drawn on his unmasked face.

"I fucking _hate_ spy movies." Jesse groaned, as a reminder. He had already said so ten times before Genji convinced him to sit through one with him, and to his defense it wasn't easy to refuse anything the young Shimada asked when he gave you that _look_.

"I _love_ spy movies," he answers the same for the umpteenth time, grin unchanged despite Jesse's protests. Genji’s right hand—a little twitchy, Jesse noticed—tapped on the screen to start up the media player. "This one is my favorite, McCree. You will not hate it."

"I hate the title," His retort came immediately as he eyed the summary of the movie on the side, it sounded quite boring. "And, oh my God, I hate that actor."

Genji, bless his soul, was as patient as ever and didn't let the scathing remarks faze him in the least. Jesse knows if anyone dared insult his top Clint Eastwood films, he'd damn right suplex the fella who felt entitled to such a false opinion. He can't either say he's too enthusiastic about watch a movie titled _Spy Teens in Manhattan_ , but it's _Genji_. He's doing it for _Genji_.

* * *

The movie was downright embarrassing to watch, at _best_ —and people call _his_ westerns a shame trip. At worst, this movie's honest-to-God a damn kid's reel. He should have expected it from the title alone, no one with a year of experience in adult filmography would use the word ‘teen’ and the name of a city in a movie title, but it was Genji's favorite spy movie. And he hadn't expected Genji's favorite spy movie to be a kid's movie. _A spy movie for kids_.

"You know I'm doing this for you, Genji." He felt the need to clarify, he wouldn't have before but at this rate he was more embarrassed to pretend to be enjoying it than to admit he was just sitting through it for his friend's sake.

"I know," Genji says, but his eyes were transfixed on the screen like someone perma-glued them. "I do not see why you complain so much. This movie is a—what was the word? a blast."

It was the golden opportunity to name every flaw on the creative production, and Jesse opened his mouth with a retort already on the tip of his tongue. "Well, first of all—" he started, but he was abruptly cut off by Genji's death grip on his wrist when one of the stunt doubles did a triple somersault through a window and landed upside down (on one hand), on top of a moving bus ride, while making a phone call.

_Fine_ , Jesse had to give it some credit for the impressive stunts—that in no way made any fucking sense because a fully conscious being would have done the same without the need to look so extra, flipping three times in mid-air, and would rather land on their feet too.

"Did you see that?" The cyborg pointed at the screen with pure bliss. "That was awesome."

Ah.

_Figures_ —Jesse was starting to understand; his mouth immediately split into a knowing grin as he observed Genji's hunched posture over the brightness of the screen that reflected onto his metallic frame, his hand still holding on to Jesse with excitement (none of them made an effort to change that).

Fifteen minutes into the movie, the character named _Janine_ —the one who did the unnecessary stunts, and also the one who had an annoying yankee accent—was at it again. A backflip right out of a swimming pool full of sharks, an inhumane dash across the slippery tiles, and she takes out a _sword_. And that's when Genji goes to shake Jesse's wrist again with a little gasp added to his glee.

Dismissing the fact that it would have been smarter to use a gun in a gunfight than a God damn sword (but surely Genji would counter his arguments), Jesse finally put the pieces together. Genji watched spy movies for the stupid stunts. Not the half-botched plot.

With this knowledge, Jesse leaned back onto the cushions of the couch, a smug little smirk on his face. The only thing that kept him from snapping at the movie’s silly antics was Genji's interjections at every crazy trick the actors performed.

* * *

When Genji had fallen asleep—after Jesse had finally convinced him to watch a western, and the cyborg had seemingly found it not up to his standards to stay awake past midnight to see the end of it—Jesse paused the movie and switched to a different tab. He already knew how the movie ended anyway, and he could watch it later.

He googled a quick search of _'best spy movies'_ while Genji snoozed on, with his head gently resting atop the gunslinger's lap.

* * *

"Check this out, McCree." The cyborg lifts up his right arm in front of him, "The doctors implemented a supply of shurikens in my arm. They reload automatically."

Jesse moved to the side of Genji's hospital bed sheepishly, a brow raised as he inspected the intricate mechanism of Genji's arm, as it trickled three shurikens between his fingers each time he dropped the previous three onto the bedsheets with mild amusement.

Jesse unintentionally let his expression pale slightly at the sight. The shurikens reloaded, twisted and clinked; it gave an ominous aspect to the young man who seemed more hooked by the idea than entranced. Jesse didn’t want to know where the shurikens even came from—probably further up his arm. Without all blood vessels and bones and muscles replaced by mechanisms that barely took so much space, even for the complexity of human motricity, it left enough room to install crazy stuff— _like a stock of auto-reloading shuriken._

"Oh. Oh—wow." At the way he hesitated, Genji seemed to notice the slight discomfort and his face fell a little too. "That's mighty neat." He attempted as a last resort.

It was too late, Genji had his eyes slipping back to the complex build of his forearm with a twinge of horror. It was true, the concept was mildly off-putting; he was basically pulling blunt projectiles out of his God damn body for the sole intent of being used to kill. Perhaps had it been something more essential, more crucial to a human being, it would be less horrifying. Though it was integrated within him now and—sure, it could be changed, but Overwatch had a firmer grasp on what cybernetic upgrades Genji was allowed to get. And he wasn't getting so much of what he had before, more than new, deadlier augments to his already outstanding abilities.

Jesse held his own right arm self-consciously the more he watches Genji flex his fingers warily and frown at each click of the wires in his built-in shuriken dispenser. It’s almost hypnotic.

Well, it was his fault in a way that Genji was now feeling increasingly more at odds with his new body, even if he already was having a hard time with it. But if it wasn’t him, was it going to be someone else?

"Hey, Genji." His voice rumbled. "Why don’t you prove me your worth as a _true_ ninja?"

The cyborg's eyes rip off the prosthetic—he was close to teary-eyed when he met Jesse's gaze with stupor. He blinked twice.

"What?"

"I wanna see your aim." He supplies, “How about you try and hit that…” Jesse moved away from the bed, toward the window on the other side of the room. He stretched out an arm that vaguely pointed toward a couple of helium balloons that had been littered around the watchpoint to celebrate a birthday last evening. "The red one, over there."

Genji's lips quirked up into a small smile. He must have figured Jesse was trying to divert his attention.

"The balloon? Easy."

He didn't even need to get up from the bed, let alone sit up to give a swift flick of his wrist, as fluid as Jesse imagined a ninja would be—one of the shurikens popped a different balloon from the one he had aimed for, the other two struck the building facing the hospital room with a faint, distant _thunk_. The target balloon barely flickered when the projectiles whizzed right by without grazing it.

Genji's smile deflated, but it was more of a pout than actual disappointment. Jesse was silent for a few long seconds, peering over the windowsill, squinting at the shurikens that seemed pretty well nailed to the wall and unwilling to fall off. He vaguely recalls someone around base telling him the walls were made of a material solid enough to sustain the kinda pressure amounted by the strength of a gunshot.

Jesse couldn’t guess which was more terrifying—the shuriken dispenser, or the fact that he had the strength to pierce a blade an inch into what looked like solid steel.

"... You, uh." He started, running a hand through his messy hair. "That seemed like a strong blow. Wouldn't like to be on the sharp end of those." He chuckled, and Genji laughed along though less enthusiastically so.

“What good is it if I cannot even aim?” He sounded tilted. Perhaps it hadn’t been such a good idea to challenge him.

"Guess your aim will come back with some practice."

* * *

Genji was still recovering from the surgery on his arm, apparently the shurikens jammed his synthetic sensitive nerves multiple times and left him with unbearable wrist pain. The good news is that the pain meant that his sensitive nerves were working. The bad news was that it translated to longer periods of surgery and recovery.

Jesse was glad Reyes wasn't sending him on missions so often since Genji had woken up from his first major surgery, he was able to visit him more often and give him some company during his recovery. When Genji was allowed out of his room for some rehabilitation or to take a breath, he was there to make it smoother. Morrison didn't particularly like the unprofessionalism in that and was vocal about it, however Reyes was just as vocal about how Morrison could keep his nose into what business concerned _him_ , and told him that at least Jesse was doing a better job at improving Genji’s health than any of Overwatch's nurses (bless him). And Reyes wasn’t just being rude, he was being factual. Jesse suspected that, excluding Angela and Reyes, he may be one of Genji's only acquaintances in the organization.

It pained him to think that maybe, every time Jesse walked into Genji's room and his eyes lit with excitement to show him one more of his cybernetic upgrades to his body, Jesse was the only one that could share the excitement with him—or sometimes inadvertently ruin it like last time.

He was Genji’s only reference to an external world outside of his hospital room. (His only friend?)

"How's that wrist?" He asked off-handedly as he waltzed to his side with a tablet tucked under his arm.

"It will pass. What is that you brought?"

Jesse smiled as he plucked the tablet on Genji's lap, waited two seconds for the younger man's eyes to adjust on the screen and his face to gleam with another of his toothy grins. " _Spy teens in Casablanca._ " Jesse announced comically.

"McCree, that is my _second_ favorite." He announced mirthfully, too quickly presses on the play button.

The reason it might be his second is because the plot sucks even more than the first one they watched, it is basic and predictable, it reeks of stereotypes and bad humor, but the stunts are still impressive. Jesse even felt himself get hooked during the action scenes; he nodded appraisingly every time that _Janine_ character pulled out another of her flamboyant prowesses out of her ass.

“I like _Janine_.” Genji admits during a particularly boring exposition scene. “I think that if I had to pick a job, I would become a stunt performer.”

At that, Jesse chuckled softly. “What stopped you?”

“My last name, McCree. A Shimada does not have a rightful place in a common lifestyle.” His eyes remained on the screen as he talked, not faltering for a second. “Not that it is my childhood dream, I am vastly more at ease just being a ninja. It was just a thought.”

Jesse could’t help smiling and pulling an arm around Genji’s shoulders, the latter allowed it albeit a little gingerly. “In my honest opinion, cyborg ninja sounds cooler than cyborg stunt double.”

“Heh, _cyborg ninja_.” The younger man smiled to himself a little proudly, but Jesse noticed the way his voice caught a little at the first word.

* * *

Angela had personally asked Jesse to take Genji to the training room to test out his latest augments, and make sure every joint remained in place like they should.

She warned him that despite his body being mostly artificial, it should not be treated unlike an organic body and be aware of its limits. So, no center splits, no twisting his spine in a one-eighty. And no handstands until his wrist pain fades. Jesse wasn’t particularly planning on allowing him to do any of those, anyway.

With this much freedom though, he was afraid Genji would get himself completely disassembled before Jesse had the time to react. Genji was wall-climbing like a cryptid onto the completely flat surfaces of the concrete walls, doing backflips, sometimes throwing shurikens at the training bots while airborne (his aim was better, Jesse noticed).

It seemed insane. Jesse can say he’s seen a fair share of _crazy_ in his Blackwatch years, as well as Deadlock, but— no, hell no, he’s never seen quite the agility up-close and live. Spy movies were a joke next to this, they had a hundred of overlaid special effects and harnesses and protection, but Genji, he was doing his thing like a passing hobby. Jumping from ledge to ledge thirty feet in the air, with only Jesse to save him if he fell. The cowboy was ready to have a heart attack.

“How does it look?” Genji called out from atop a twenty-foot steel pole, his visor creating a tin static in his voice that made him feel even more robotic and surreal.

“You look dashing.” Jesse joked, partially. He mostly meant it, though the edge on his voice gave away the fact that he was frightened by Genji’s careless parkouring. He couldn’t see Genji’s expression with the visor, he wished it wasn’t a necessity to hide his face.

“You do not sound so certain.”

“Well, you’re kinda scaring me, Genji. I ain’t never seen you bounce around like that. I don’t want to send you back to the medbay so soon. Angela will have my skin.”

“There is nothing to worry about. I have always done these things since I was a child, better even than my brother.”

“Alright, but…”

Truly, he doesn’t know how to counter that, he’s already expressed his concern, and Genji refuses to acknowledge the risks. He looked as Genji pounced toward the next ledge with as much ease as a cat, like it was nothing, but it did nothing to appease him.

Maybe he really ought to calm down, to stop coddling him just because for as long as he’s known Genji, he’s only seen him bandaged, bleeding, covered in metal, sometimes limping, sometimes in pain. Of course Jesse knew about the feared Shimada clan, of what they were capable to do. Genji isn’t doing anything else than what he’s always used to do. Didn’t want to do anything else than what he was trained to do, than what he’s ever done as a fully organic being.

Jesse knew Genji refused to acknowledge the state of his body, wanted to believe it had never changed, that he was still flesh and tissues and bones. Every time someone raised the implication of his prosthetics, he ignored them, or freezed to a trance when he became too conscious of it. Jesse didn’t know what was the right thing to do, he didn’t know if there was even _anything_ he could or should do. He was no philosopher, he was twenty-eight and still not fully recovered from his disastrous past himself. He didn’t know how to guide Genji toward the peace of mind he deserved, he could only sit with him and watch bad kid flicks, bring him meals and newspapers, play video games that he sucked at, provide him with the warmth of human contact. Jesse wasn’t the best for moral support, but he tried, and _tried_ to make his life easier to bear.

He liked Genji.

“McCree!” The cyborg was screaming, but he sounded delighted. Jesse wondered when he had lost visual on him, and searched for a solid ten seconds. “Look, I am doing a split!”

Oh— _Fuck—_

“ _Genji!_ ” He shouts right back as he spots him around a corner, very rightfully so performing a wide split with his two legs spread across the tilt of a slope on the ground. Jesse was absolutely outraged. “What the _hell_ —Genji! Oh my— _Jesus_. Fuck!”

“I do not feel any pain, McCree. This is amazing. It is just like _Jeremy_ did in the movie. I have never done a split before!” He was laughing. And then he paused. “Wait, I think I am stuck.”

“You just— you fucking _didn’t— Angela!!_ ”

* * *

Genji had laughed for two days at the memory of the training grounds. Three people had to come carry the cyborg to the medbay because he couldn’t move, the joints had clicked wrong, and apparently it had cut off the synthetic sensitive and motor nerves to his entire lower half which explained the lack of pain and the immobility. Genji earned himself a lesson from both Jesse and Angela, and also an extra week of bedrest to repair the nerves.

In hindsight, it wasn’t so bad. Jesse had expected worse out of a physical exercise—like, yeah, breaking his prosthetics, getting a concussion—he had expected injuries to reopen, he had expected memories to come back. _No, that would be silly._

_Memories of the first day he met Genji, at the arcade in Hanamura, the predatory assassin who would rather waste his time on cheap video-games, of his gentle unfaltering smile, his oddly charming condescence, the vibrancy of an outrageous mop of neon-green hair—of the days after, when he found him again with Reyes in tow, sheltered from the light of the world by the shadow of a dark alley, abandoned. Bleeding. Barely breathing. Of the light weight of his feeble limbs, the tremble of his fingers as they scraped on dried blood across his clothes. A smile gone, replaced by shock. A name breathed into Jesse’s ear, like an inquiry._

_‘Hanzo’_

Jesse shook his head, quelling the knot in his throat. He held back a sigh. Overreacting again. The guy was fine, Genji had merely fooled around and gone past his limit. Just a fucking split. Something of the magnitude of what had happened in Hanamura, it couldn’t happen twice, never by accident. Not while Jesse had an eye on him.

It was clear Jesse worried too much sometimes, and Genji let him know. And Jesse knew that he knew. And he knew that it was over the top, that Genji was, as a person, even more capable than Jesse at doing just about anything. That if anything, Genji is more fit to be the one to protect Jesse’s ass from trouble, while also protecting an entire army by himself. He pinpointed his overprotectiveness toward Genji as simple camaraderie, friendship.

Angela started giving him passing looks every time he visited Genji, sometimes she had to ward him off to let the cyborg rest. Telling him he was becoming an overwhelming presence for the guy. Was it true? He didn’t want to think Angela would spike anxiety in him for kicks. He wondered if Genji wasn’t getting tired of his whole face, if he needed a change of air. Jesse suspected she personally demanded Reyes to give him a mission to keep him away from Genji for a while, and he was kind of bitter for that one.

But it scared him more than anything. A strange feeling. So it seemed Genji wasn’t _just_ a friend.

He was sent on a two-week mission to Dorado, and advised to come back with his thoughts cleared.

* * *

Genji had to undergo two more surgeries by the time Jesse returned from Dorado; the former had not yet woken up from induced sleep, and visiting was prohibited.

Jesse had, somewhat reluctantly, managed to get a grip on his sentiments toward the younger Shimada, but it did not deter him from being at constant bay about the progress on his health. He tried to coax reports out of Angela about what kind of nifty ‘upgrades’ they did again on Genji’s cybernetics, and if he was taking it any better than his first surgeries.

It’s the first time Angela is willing to reveal information on her interventions, even if she had not so much to do with it more than keeping him alive through the surgeries with her nanobiotechnologies, whatever it was. And she looked grimly upset as the interventions followed.

Augmented speed, lighter step, physical strength and stamina duplicated by high value factors, boosted cell-regenerating abilities, possibility to reach a peak speed of _sixty meters per second_ when dashing forward, Jesus Christ, _double jumping._

“I think…” Angela’s voice lacked her usual sternness when she spoke in her element, it was shadowed by doubt and distinct worry. “I’m starting to understand. What you feel. What he feels, why he so adamantly rejects his body.”

“Overwatch’s lost all sense of credibility.” Jesse snorted, his tone sardonic. “They’re turning a man into a weapon, to send him back to fight the battle he couldn’t win alone.”

Angela turned to him, her expression didn’t change.

“Jesse, there is nothing we can do.”

“ _You’re_ a part of the surgical team. _You_ can do something about it, Angela.”

Even when his voice started raising, the doctor did not flinch, steadfast. “I did all I could do. I gave him a second chance. The rest is independent of my decision. Perhaps a second chance is not what he needed, if it was to become what he will.”

Jesse’s eyes widened and his brows raised up to his hairline incredulously, and Angela had the gall to keep looking at him with the same defiance after saying such a stupid fucking thing.

“It isn’t a second fucking chance if he doesn’t get the life he _deserves!_ ”

Angela could only reply with a muted _‘I know’_.

Jesse turned to leave.

* * *

Understandably so, Reyes is the only one who concurs with his opinion on the matter. Similarly to how he had found Genji, wounded and on the brink of death in the streets of Hanamura, Reyes had extracted a seventeen year old Jesse McCree out of a gang dealing in arms, saving his sorry ass from a lifetime of jail through a simple deal.

Reyes understood where Jesse’s sense of protectiveness came from, but even then he felt an added weight to it. Like there was something else.

The Blackwatch commander slipped into Jesse’s hand a DVD of _GoldenEye_ , an outdated _James Bond_ movie which he stole from Morrison’s stash of (disappointing) movies. Apparently it was the best one of the saga, so they said. Jesse practically beamed with anticipation.

“Y’know, commander, I’m actually kinda starting to enjoy these junk movies.”

“You call them junk, but what you watch is garbage, McCree.” He gives the gunslinger a friendly slap on the back of his head, effectively knocking the stetson off his hair. “You growing soft on the cheesy plots?”

“Nah, they fucking suck still, but when you have someone to watch them with it’s just a tad more fun.”

Reyes gave a loud guffaw, followed by a _look_ that spoke tales of how much he _knew_ what Jesse really meant. “You never agreed to watch the Halloween movies with me, though, huh? _Mentiroso._ ”

The color drained from Jesse’s face, conflicted between flustered and mortified. “That’s ‘cause you have some straight-up creepy tastes. I can live fifty times through a cringe-worthy kid’s movie, but not _The Grudge_ a second time.” His hand shakily reached to his shirt collar to give a gentle tug, he hated when Reyes reminded him of the time he chickened out of a scary fiction.

“No, I know,” The older man went on, “But I bet you’d sit your pants down and watch it if Shimada asked.”

Jesse was already long gone after the accusation.

* * *

Genji woke a week later, and he immediately barged into Jesse’s room with a stack of microwaved popcorn and contagious cheerfulness. “Yo, Reyes told me he lent you _GoldenEye_!” Unshockingly, the popcorn was already half eaten and Genji didn’t wait for an answer to kick back onto the couch across the DVD player. “I cannot believe these old people still own DVD’s, those items are practically _extinguished_. McCree?”

Something—rather, _someone_ tumbled loudly down Jesse’s bed with a pained groan, a rather pathetic show of himself rolling over on the floor until he could properly angle his face to look up at his visitor. “Genji, that you,” Jesse’s voice slurs over the name, accentuating the fatigue that already made itself clear by the disheveled look he sported indifferently. Genji perhaps understood then that Jesse had not been as awake as himself when he had unceremoniously dropped in.

“I am sorry,” He spoke softly then, crouching down next to Jesse’s drowsy figure rumpled across the floor, a sweet little smile from the cyborg shedding some light on the gunslinger’s clouded mood. “I did not know you were asleep. It is five in the afternoon, though.”

“Oh shit.” He croaked awkwardly. He thought for sure that it was way beyond into the night, given how dark it was outside. Winter daylight hours made everything more confusing. “Was just napping.” He added, as if that helped him look any better.

“You look very exhausted,” He shook his head, and when Jesse had a clearer look at his face, he noticed just how much Genji was in a similar situation. All his excitement, his cheers, they were overdone, for his metaphorical mask was slowly slipping off and giving place to the reality of things. What little of organic essence was left in him worked overtime to sustain through the periodic surgeries, and enhancements, and inhuman challenges his synthetic body requested of him. It tugged at Jesse’s heartstrings. “I will let you rest, Jesse.”

“And you?” His hand reaches out weakly toward the closest thing he could grab, it barely grazed Genji’s forearm, and the latter moved his hand slightly so he could hold Jesse’s in a loose grip. “You haven’t rested in a year,” Jesse commented, voice stern but betraying with affection, he gave a tug on Genji’s hand and a tired smile. “Let’s watch that darn movie.”

* * *

_GoldenEye_ was a blur of nothing. He didn’t even remember anything past Pierce Brosnan for thirty seconds before he drifted to sleep tangled in a heap of pillows and blankets and Genji.

He had forgotten along the night that they had fallen asleep with their hands still linked, and then perhaps at some point one of them had moved and separated them unintentionally. Jesse was relieved to find Genji was still buried in the layers of blankets, looking the most peaceful he’s ever seen him even with how warm and stuffy the room had gotten (they must have turned up the heat radiators during the night).

Jesse discards his clothes and trades them for fresher, less sweaty ones to grab some breakfast at the mess hall. It was five in the morning and some agents were departing to their respective missions, others just had local duties, but he was glad the mess hall just remained open at all times with the weird schedules at base.

By the time he returned with two trays of food, Genji was still slumbering. No signs of waking up in the near future, either. Jesse waited so they could share the breakfast.

* * *

He slept until four in the afternoon.

Jesse had nearly passed out in turn, but he immediately perked up when he noticed Genji stirring. He still looked as exhausted as he had on the last day—figures, twenty-three hours of sleep is not as healthy as it sounds, and he had already gone through several hours of induced sleep at the medbay. The cyborg was probably exhausted from exhaustion.

He apologized when Jesse explained he had waited for him for breakfast, but Jesse assured him it was fine, that he’d rather not bother him for a mundane thing. Despite the hour it was, Genji still ate what Jesse had brought him some nine hours ago with a meek appetite.

They decided that they could give _GoldenEye_ a second chance.

“I’ve been wondering,” Jesse tossed the remnants of last evening’s popcorn into his mouth, at least three of the five he tossed tumbling off the side of his face and landing between the cracks of the couch. “Y’know… Why don’t you watch ninja movies instead? I mean, spy movies have cool stunts and all, it’s funny. But ninja’s the real stuff, you know?”

“McCree, don’t be silly.” He huffs a breathy chuckle. “There is so little ninja movies out there, and most of them are not well done. They are produced by Hollywood directors with poor knowledge of Eastern culture, and white actors who have done no training in the martial arts. It is insulting to watch them.”

The cowboy pointed a finger at Genji with his hand full of crushed popcorn leftovers, “You make a fair point.” He then shoves the bits into his mouth ungraciously, a good third of the portion once again failing to reach his mouth, some even clinging to his beard. “Just like most cowboy movies are false representations of what the nineteenth century really was… But I suppose I enjoy the thrill of the plot, nevertheless.”

“Is that so?” Genji tilted his head, he sounded a tie between amused and curious.

“Yeah, did you know, the word _cowboy_ comes from the Spanish _vaquero_? The majority of cowboys were really just Mexican. Some from other parts of Latino America.” He shovelled another handful of popcorn into his hand and made short work of it. “I guess spy movies at least are so unrealistic and baseless that you can’t be mad at it.”

“Heh, indeed.” He chuckled, “I do appreciate ninja movies when they are well done, though, they definitely beat a shitty spy movie.”

“So you admit they’re shitty!” Jesse exclaims with pure _joy_.

“Only the plot is shitty!” Genji shoves him playfully until they both had calmed.

It made sense, after all. Movies weren’t meant to tell you reality at all times. They were mostly a device to escape from it. To forget how stupidly harsh it could be. Perhaps Genji didn’t use to like spy movies as much as he did now that his life had taken a different route.

Jesse turned his head to Genji when he noticed the latter had stopped watching the movie to make a fixation on his beard. Jesse’s face grimaced as he tried looking down at it, until Genji extended a hand to run through the untrimmed hair—his metallic fingers felt cold, yet Jesse only warmed uncharacteristically at the unprompted gesture.

“Your beard, it looks dirty.” He teased.

Jesse slapped the hand right off with a disappointed scowl, the motion making some of the crumbs of popcorn that caught in his beard suddenly fly off in all directions. His room was turning into a god damn wasteland. “Way to make a man’s heart ache with words like that.”

Genji just laughed and attempted to ruffle his beard again, quite successfully.

* * *

It had been a month since they performed the last surgery on the cyborg. He had been attested by several professionals as _‘fully operational’_. Like a machine. Like a God damn weapon ready to launch.

He was due to depart for training missions in Russia for a few weeks before he could be sent to Hanamura for the bigger operation. Which meant it was Jesse’s turn to return to his base of ops in Santa Fe with the stinky Blackwatch people and with commander Reyes. He had made sure to silently thank Gabriel for his quiet support, how he somehow allowed Jesse a full stay in an Overwatch base just to look after his friend, for almost eight months.

Jesse finds Genji perched atop a watchtower, his feet dangling off the edge idly with a calmness he had seen a lot in him in the last few days, when he was left alone like this.

He waited for the sun to vanish below the line of the horizon before joining Genji in his little hideout, the younger man seemingly pleased to have some company (it really reassured Jesse, more than he could tell himself).

“It looks like we will not be seeing each other for a while.” Genji comments when Jesse closed in to his side.

“You’re finally getting rid of my ugly face, eh?” He jokes, “Don’t miss me too much.”

“Heheh, I might have a lot on my mind when I will get there, but you will be one among those thoughts.”

Jesse wished his heart wasn’t so quick to react to the smallest compliments.

“Jesse,” His first name being called out surprised him and quickened his heartrate even more than the last words. He could hear Reyes laughing in the back of his mind. _‘Como un adolescente enamorado’_. “See that red spot over there?” Genji gestured with his left toward a small spot of red paint among other colors that decorated the wall about fifty yards across from them. Jesse nodded curiously. “Watch this.”

It happened faster than he could understand what was going on—the flick of Genji’s wrist, the sound of steel slicing the air like a whip and the distant _thunk_ of three successive shurikens planting with pinpoint accuracy on the far stain of red.

Jesse wasn’t so scared anymore.

“I knew you could do it,” He tells the cyborg with one of his lopsided grins, a proud feeling blooming in his chest, proud of his friend. Genji felt it too, the fondness in his words.

They continued staring at the painted wall for several minutes in deep silence.

“I think it is starting to, how do you say, _‘sink in’_.”

“What is?”

“Everything.” Genji said it in a mindless tone, it verged on anxious, relied on a thin sheet of serenity. The kind of sensation you feel when you come to terms with something you’ve denied for too long, or not long enough, as a coping mechanism. The howls of the wind fill the cold silence of the base. “My home… my clan…” He seemed hesitant to speak. “... My own brother.” He spoke in a low, leisurely pace, each word accentuated with the slow increase of his emotions. His breath had hitched just lightly at the last one.

It was a burning, devouring anger. It was a hatred mixed with desolation, a lot of confusion. It looked like he could hardly put his feelings in place, like they all, one-by-one, slowly came in bursting like a crescendo of fireworks. Jesse could hear the faint squeeze of synthetic material as it tightened around Genji’s closed fists.

“... Myself.” His hand opened and his fingers spread across his thighs. That last one was louder than the rest, sterner, boiling in a pit of disgust.

Jesse had closed the distance, and was reaching out to touch Genji, his shoulder, his arm, to hold him, anything, to root him back to his senses.

Then Genji turned around and the tension had dissipated from every fiber of his body.

“... _You._ ” A whisper.

A hand, meeting Jesse’s fingers halfway.

Jesse didn’t even notice himself gaping. Stumbling backward, just an inch. Genji’s grip held him in place, an unvoiced request. An unheard confession.

A _thank you_.

 

 

 

 

 

 

* * *

_Ten years had passed._

A steady beeping, like the sound of a heartbeat monitor.

The relentless chirping of a bird outside. The lampshade he forgot to turn off last night. The blinds half-pulled, allowing a sliver of August sun to burn his closed eyelids.

The steady beeping ceased.

Silence.

 

 

_“McCree? Jesse McCree, ah-hum. This is Winston… Winston reporting. I thought this seemed an appropriate hour to call, from the location Athena indicated me… Uh. You are in New Mexico, yes? I believe it is almost noon over there. I apologize if it is not the case, if you are… not available. And if you have a moment to spare, I would like to talk…”_

Jesse remained still. He barely stirred, but the voice of an old ex-Overwatch agent brought a negative thrill to his recently awoke nerves.

_“The, uh… Yes. I will… Please get back to me if you can. If you want. Over.”_

It could wait.

* * *

He had a growing suspicion about what Winston had called him to discuss. After seven years of being out of touch with Overwatch, no less. Six painfully long years after the collapse. The Swiss Headquarters event.

Lena tried to contact him as well, he answered reluctantly, and declined her cheery offer to discuss about it around a cup of tea. He declined all of Angela’s three calls, and stared for a long moment at the glowing letters of Genji’s contact information. His last call was a month ago.

He had promised the cowboy that he would return to him after his last trip to Nepal, he was meant to come by a week ago.

Had he received the message too? Had he gone and accepted?

A distinct succession of knocks at the blinds on his window captured his attention, he scrambled to pull the curtains and open the latch of the window, a familiar figure slid into his temporary apartment.

“Jesse, I have missed you.” The fondness in his voice is genuine enough that he doesn’t need to see the expression beneath the layers of clothes and his gleaming green mask. Jesse didn’t hesitate a second to pull him into a welcoming embrace, which was returned with the same vigor.

The various scarves and cloaks that shielded his body from the New Mexico heat were discarded one by one until he was left with only his armor. A cloud of pressurized steam liberated from the odd mechanism in his shoulder blades as he relaxed his stance.

Genji bowed respectfully to the older man, his two hands clasped together in front of his chest, and Jesse mirrored him clumsily. Ten years he’s known him and he still hadn’t learned how to bow.

“There is a lot I must tell you.” The cyborg begins, “I am right to assume you received word of Overwatch’s recall?”

“Not directly, but I speculated as much.”

“You must have declined, then.” Genji’s voice might be modified by his visor, but it doesn’t hide the dismay in his words. “I understand, you are still conflicted by the things it has done to you.”

“I ain’t just _conflicted._ ” He repeated the word with a pang of agitation, though the negative feelings weren’t directed to the present man. “They took Ana. They killed Gabriel. They destroyed a family. They turned you into something you never wanted.”

“They brought us together.” Genji added, and Jesse was none the wiser. His visor then came off with the hiss of metal disengaging, clattering to the table near the two of them. His tone sounded no longer corrupted like that of an omnic. “I will not force you to follow my steps, Jesse, but I believe Overwatch can be rebuilt into something better. A second chance.”

Jesse sat onto the closest chair, facing the small kitchenette with the digital clock that indicated eleven forty-six. His gaze flickered to Genji who had come to join him at the table, a hand outstretched to him. He took it in both of his hands, flesh and prosthetic, a funny combination.

“Better doesn’t exclude Ana and Gabriel.” Jesse drags on, but a smile creeps nevertheless. “A different start, it could be. Not a second, but a different chance.”

“I would enjoy having more to do with you than just watch my unsavory spy movies.” Genji chuckled.

“Then the decision ain’t gonna be as difficult for me to take.” He declares with a well-placed tip of his hat, leaning forward on the creaking wood of his chair to lay a chaste peck on the corner of the ninja’s willing lips—the feel of his chapped lips and scarred flesh not completely foreign to him—which was soon enough reciprocated by a soft, lingering kiss that lasted for several more seconds.

**Author's Note:**

> Translation notes:  
> ‘Mentiroso’ = Liar  
> ‘Como un adolescente enamorado’ = Like a teenager in love
> 
> Thank you all for reading and special thanks to Rhys for beta!! <3


End file.
